Conceptualizing the Trends of Contemporary New Religious Thinking in Three Fields of Necessity, Possibility and Theoretical Approach

New religious thinking, as one of the characteristics of contemporary era, is a twin of modernism. New religious thinking had got many claimants, so far as each thinker adjusts the concept of religious innovation in a way that limits the circle of new religious thinking for the presence of others. However, this issue would, in turn, challenge any criterion for evaluating various trends of new religious thinking; therefore scholarly efforts for distinguishing between necessity, possibility and theoretical approach have not been carried out yet. The manner of conceptual separation of various types of new religious thinking is the question that this paper tries to answer. (Question) It seems that by formulating the trends of new religious thinking in the aforementioned areas, we can answer this question. (Hypothesis) Therefore, the goal is to conceptualize the components of the plurality of new religious thinking, having the capacity to be evaluated and compared. (Objective) Thus, the present study tries to identify the fundamental issues related to each trend of religious innovation including the relationship between religion and modernity and reproduce them from their starting point within the three concepts of necessity, possibility and theoretical approach. (Methodology) Rejecting inward and outward evidence-based views and merely by emphasizing on conceptualizing, this paper intends to present a specific categorization of the trends of new religious thinking.